I'm of the opinion that the best way to grow bitcoin adoption is to create goods and services that people actually want to buy, and then accept bitcoin for those goods and services.
But the key differentiator to what a lot of bitcoiners often think is that I believe the product must come first. Thus, you can't start off thinking "I'll be a bitcoin business", you have to start off thinking "I'm gonna make the best X in the market", and bitcoin is only secondary to that.
So to that end, I'm wondering how many stackers here are small business owners? (Or large business owners?)
If you aren't, would you like to become one some day? And what kind of business would you run?
Since I declined a salaried job offer post-interview today, I'm a freelancer still, so that makes me at the very least a mercenary, though to me that feels not so much a small business owner; I am the business, literally.
If today I get 2 opportunities to make into a gig and I'd have to choose between one that pays in sats, and one that pays in fiat, I'd of course take the sats. The problem I have is that there aren't many big businesses (which are my customers) that are willing or often even legally allowed to pay me in sats.
And then when I did score a big sats denominated gig I got walked out on and ignored at the final milestone payment coming due (because the suckers didn't buy the BTC up front.) So I'm hesitant to at least denominate contracts in BTC for multi-stage gigs because the counterparty needs to be ready for that too, and they aren't.
I think though that it's unwise to approach "small business" for sats as a registered business type of thing. It's not worth the trouble because it's all political, and we all know how the wind can change on Bitcoin. Instead, just sell products on ~AGORA instead of on Etsy. Maybe I'll try out offering services there, see if that works?
I'd love to be able to get paid for sats for work. The best I've done is contributing to Stacker.News back when they were still doing contributor bounties. I haven't done anything for a while, but that's more because my focus turned towards my SN research project vs. contributing code. My comparative advantage is still research work and not programming. No idea how I can get paid for sats for that.
Oh! I saw I got awarded some sats a few months ago but I didn't claim it. Didn't know it was gone. It was very generous imho - at least in my case.
I think that your SN research project was awesome. You're very skilled.
It's also why I didn't put too much effort in running stats on the downzaps when they started happening - I feel like an imposter. I did some things in R, like try to see if those never ending downzaps were hurting @Scoresby's engagement [1], because that was hit hardest. But I am not a statistician and I can't make soup out of this. No sers. I will stick to reporting how many blocks are signaling BIP-110 😂
In applied form, I expect this to become needed. Not when everyone is panicking or partying due to NgD/NgU respectively, but in the middle, when businesses build. Some of the Bitcoin businesses have become big enough to need someone that can make soup of things.
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If you're listed in https://github.com/stackernews/stacker.news/blob/master/awards.csv and still haven't been paid, I think they'd still be willing to pay.
I think they took away contributor bounties though because too many bots were trying to claim them.
I'm the bottom entry.
Oh nice you have over 300k lined up.
Maybe this will work: #1441546
As for me, I kinda want to start a coding camp for kids called
Cypherpunks, that focuses not just on coding and computer literacy, but also on bitcoin, economics, and moral philosophy.There's a lot of kids' educational businesses out there, and in the tech space they usually focus on coding or robotics, but yeah I wanted to do one more in line with a bitcoin ethos
Online only or will you have a brick and mortar location?
I don't know about where you are but where I live kids extracurricular activities are very popular and lucrative businesses.
I would definitely want it brick and mortar. I know that's way more expensive and also limits the clientele more, but I don't want to run an online education business. If I wouldn't send my kids to my own business, I don't want to run it.
Also, California is infamous for being business unfriendly. I haven't done any of the math to test if this idea would be profitable / worth the time.
Maybe you can find an existing space that is suitable and used for something else that you could partner with to host your classes once per week to test the viability of your idea before diving in.
That does sound like a good idea. There are plenty of brick & mortar shops for coding and robotics classes that would be well set up for something like this.
I am big on testing your ideas and resolve before diving in head first. Might be a great idea but you might find you hate doing it.
I'm gonna end up teaching a class on bitcoin and next week the kids are all YOLOing into ETH, DOGE, and stablecoins
I have hope the next generation won't be that dumb.
I really like your idea. If something similar were available to enroll my daughter, I wouldn't hesitate.
Yes, I think there would actually be some good demand for it. Especially if we offer some ~AI courses, too, ~lol, since every parent is concerned about that.
To do this well, though, I'd probably have to quit my current job and invest a lot of upfront capital. Not sure if I'm ready to do that yet.
I’m self employed and take Bitcoin when I can. In the years right before I discovered bitcoin, one of my main gigs (still consulting role) was putting together and booking bands for corporate parties and weddings, and the software we used accepted onchain Bitcoin payments (all to one address). I never ever looked into it but had a number of clients that apparently paid that way. If I could turn back time, I feel like I could have steered that company seriously towards bitcoin. At the time I just thought it was just some tech thing though.
I’m trying! In the domain of stickers, t shirts and zines. Long way to go to make it the best and I’m hardly competitive so I end up doing what I like, more than anything else. but I think this is key, too, when in a world of bots, people want taste
I love the idea of stickers but I usually don't know where to put them. I don't want to put them on my expensive laptop, or my guitar. Water bottles, I keep losing them. Any other ideas of where to put stickers?
Maybe I can give them out as rewards to my students lol
I definitely understand that friction. I like the idea of saving a collection and displaying them as a collage in a frame. This way, you wouldn’t actually stick them. So then as a sticker, it’s pointless, but you do get to package a piece of art in a fun way
Another thought I just had is that we give out Christmas cards every year. It might be fun to attach a random sticker to each one, and people can compare which stickers they got from us lol
I gave stickers as Christmas gifts this past year! It was a photo of the person and their name. It was a hit! And I let everyone choose someone else’s photo that they wanted. So i thought it could work well for labeling things especially in a multi-kid home where water bottles and things get thrown around
Oh, that is a pretty nice idea. I like that.
officially but not really... it's just a one-man show
I do have Zaprite and take payments there #889350
wait what is it you sell? am I dumb for that
I just use Zaprite to invoice for my writing + editing services.
Doesn't really feel like a business if you don't have a standalone shop with a physical product, lolz... I'm just working, you know?
I mean, that counts. You're just selling services, not physical products. But it's still a business.
not standalone, not a shop I could sell or someone else could run if you know what I mean.
Do you have a business card?
Nope
oh, then you're definitely not a business owner then :D
Riiight right
Yeah I’m with you, I’m using zaprite exclusively
Well, I am, but none of my clients are rich enough to pay me in bitcoin. LOL.
What does your business do?
Research, coding, communications, consulting, business analysis and tax analysis.
Yo. I have a small business but currently it is just a means for me to get paid some commissions from the business I sold and to get paid as a contractor from my p/t job. I don't do much with it other than income tax avoidance. Haha
I am thinking about starting up a new business this spring.
Are you a cereal entrepreneur?
Haha. Yes I sell frosted flakes on one corner lemonade stand style and then on the other corner I sell knock off GLP-1 drugs I bought off alibaba. Tough job but somebody's gotta do it.
Honestly, I used to be much more of an entrepreneur than I am now. My desire to start a new business has more to do with scheduling flexibility and tax efficiency than a desire to build at this point. When I was younger I had a dream of building a big business. We didn't get there but did pretty well. But I traded a lot of time, peace of mind and family life for even the modest success I had. Once you get into Bitcoin it doesn't take long to figure out trading most of your life to chase fiat is not a great deal.
I am ... but it's a one-man show and it's not profitable (yet) :/
I did put the cart before the horse in some sense though, wanting to create a Bitcoin business, not just a business that accepts bitcoin.
I still believe in the core idea of the business (it can be done on purely fiat rails as well) and I've expanded the scope (in some ways, I've scaled my plans back in others) since launching it, but it's a difficult journey.
What kind of business are you building?
#784376
I've since included my "personal brand" under that enterprise, mostly focused on my book (#1074789) and some love & freedom inspired merch (https://kontext.store/)
there are probably more NEETs here than business owners lmao
OOF
You should start a post asking if anyone here is a NEET
I am not sure if that's call a business or services.
But I am engaged with a few Bitcoin platforms. Where products are games and website as well a site know as microlancer. Where people do pay in sats for some small tasks. I like the concept. And keep myself contented.
Also, I keep orange pilling 💊💊 fellow people's those are interested in Bitcoin community by Refferal and tips regarding Bitcoin technology.
I completely agree — the product has to come first. Without something valuable to offer, bitcoin acceptance alone won’t make a business sustainable.
For me personally, I’d love to run a creative media/photography studio that accepts Bitcoin. The goal would be to focus on quality content and services first, then integrate crypto payments as a way to expand reach and provide more payment freedom.
What kind of small business do you think could really benefit from being Bitcoin-native from day one?